(disclaimers and associated descriptions in overture)
* * *
<<ACT TWO>>
"What do you want?" - Galen
* * *
#There#
Many of the crewmembers on the bridge of the EXCALIBUR had followed their captain from his previous command, the surveillance cruiser WARSPITE, and as such, were after a fashion able to sense his moods. And without exception, those crewmembers were now keeping their mouths shut, so as not to attract his wrath. Because when Captain Gideon got as irritated as he was now...
And then, to their relief, another figure appeared -- someone who'd been absent from the bridge ever since the battle at Zander Prime has concluded. And now would come the explosion.
"Admiral," Gideon began, his voice *ever* so calm and collected. "I beg leave to report that we've now arrived at transfer beacon 1175-A. And since that's the case, were you planning on transferring us to some other location in the forseeable future?"
"As a matter of fact, Captain, I am. After some discussion with our allies, the decision has been made to set course for Epsilon 3."
"Epsilon 3? Would you care to explain to me why we're taking an armed-to-the-teeth Alliance battlegroup into orbit around a planet whose most evolved lifeform happens to be bacteria?"
"For now, Captain," Sinclair patiently replied, "It's enough for you to know that things aren't... exactly what they seem. It will all become clear to you once we arrive."
"Which still doesn't tell me why we need all the firepower."
Sinclair's expression darkened, as he settled into his chair. "Let's just say for now that I'm expecting some Imperial partycrashers to show up at the main event. And when our enemies discover what we're up to, they'll undoubtedly decide the successful completion of our mission is not in their best interests. "
"And this mission?..."
"Would be the part I can't tell you about yet."
"Rigghht."
* * *
The door opened, and for the second time since her arrival on the EXCALIBUR, Julia stepped into the Technomage's sanctum. Not a lot had changed since her last visit -- their 'mirror' still stood in the middle of the chamber, all alone in its pool of light. Neither Isabelle nor Jaenisara had seen fit to explain to her how it worked... but was that so important? The only thing that seemed to be important for the time being was to succeed in the quest that Sinclair and Zathras had laid upon her -- to pull her opposite out of the darkness, and into the light.
If that was even possible, that was.
"Recovered sufficiently, have you?" a gentle voice inquired, and Julia turned in mid-step, to see Isabelle emerge from the darkness.
"So it would seem. But at the same time, I cannot waste too much time focusing on the minor pains induced by our... coexistence. I have something very important to do, here... and unless I succeed, I may never see my home again."
"There is a certain amount of truth in what you say." Isabelle allowed. "But at the same time, understand that Captain Gideon should not have done what he did. My Master and the Captain have had words, and I assure you that he will not interfere in your sessions again."
"That's probably for the best, I suppose. And yet..."
"And yet," Isabelle noted, a smile of amusement touching her features, "You found it worthwhile to finally meet him... the man who commands the ship you have been sworn to protect, yes?"
"Would their happen to be anyone in this little conspiracy of yours that hasn't been peeking into my reality, just lately?" she sharply inquired.
"Fear not. Besides those you have already met, there are very few other individuals in this place and time that know the details of your origin. And all of those were contacted by the Gatekeeper... individually."
"Again, the Gatekeeper! Just who *is* this Gatekeeper you keep talking about?"
"You know him." Isabelle allowed. "And before this is all over, you will meet him... again. For now, however, we must attend to the task at hand more closely. We must approach the goal in a more... constructive method then previously. And you, Julia, must use your skills of persuasion and Observance as you have never used them before. You must ask her five questions -- and those questions will unlock the door that will take you home. But choose carefully... the questions must be the right ones."
Questions? "And, how much time are you going to give me to prepare for this inquisition?"
"None at all." was Isabelle's reply, and the now stern-featured Technomage turned towards the mirror, and with a gesture, brought it alight. "The moment comes. Ask the first question, the question that will lead the woman named Darkness Born onto the road that awaits her."
"Ah," the sinister whisper came, and Julia gritted her teeth before turning towards the mirror to meet the malicious gaze of the Other. "Back again so soon are you, Usurper?"
"We have unfinished business, you and I. A great deal of unfinished business."
"Haven't you learned your lesson yet? The only thing that you will accomplish in these *conversations*, as you and Captain Gideon have already learned, is to increase my hate of you and the rest... increase my anger at the injustice of being trapped here, of being forced to talk to you by *her* kind. And that, as you have already learned first hand, gives you pain." The Other raised her eyebrows, the smile now manipulative. "And in my experience, most people will do just about anything to avoid pain. How much pain are you willing to endure, before admitting defeat?"
It was then that a light came on in her mind... and Julia smiled. "And you would, of course, include yourself in that category, wouldn't you?"
"I *beg* your pardon?"
"Don't deny it!" she declared, suddenly striding up to the mirror's face. "I've seen how you respond to pain -- I remember you screaming, as the Drakh ordered its underling to whip you for your mistakes, so long ago. And what of the pain you endured when I stopped you from giving the order to destroy the EXCALIBUR? What did you do? You ran away from the pain, ran away in the only way you knew how."
"That's not true!"
"Isn't it? What is the meaning of pain, do you think? Why do we endure it? And has there ever been a moment when you've stood by someone's side and endured pain for their benefit?"
Julia paused, then, and to her amazement and satisfaction, the Other said nothing, her expression scornful... and a little bit frightened. "I take it your answer is no, then?"
"Have you learned nothing? In my Empire, it is every man and every woman for themselves! Everyone is out to get everyone else, and it is necessary to kill to get what you want. The action you describe is alien to my world... alien to me."
"Then learn your first lesson. There may come a moment in your life when enduring pain to save another may mean the difference between victory or defeat."
"You're not going to tell me *you've* endured such a moment, are you?"
"I have." Julia whispered, as the whispers of a time in her life she hadn't touched in years returned to haunt her. "It was almost the end of the Earth Year 2260..."
* * *
It was almost the end of the Earth 2260, and the man we named Rimstalker had taken the White Star Fleet into battle against the Shadows for the first time... while the woman he would eventually marry had stayed behind on Minbar at his order. He wanted to protect her, you see, to make sure the Shadows wouldn't touch her. It was a ultimately futile choice in the end -- a choice that would lead both of them through darkness and fire, before victory would be attained.
On that fateful day, I stood at her side, on the waterfall the Minbari name Gajn'darahl, and waited for word to come. The wait was long, and after much meditation and prayer, she sent me down to the temple below for the daily meal. I obeyed her of course, for she was my Mistress -- and yet I rushed through the meal so I might return to her side. What I found upon my return, however, was enough to make hope fade -- for in my absence, the Shadows had come to the heart of the Light... the darkness had come to steal my teacher away from me.
The Shadows had come, and with them had come their servants. I returned to the waterfall to find a dark-clothed man standing over my Mistress, a man I knew. A man I had met before. Once, the man had served honorably at her side, but into darkness he had fallen, corrupted by the Shadows. Come to take her away into their darkness he had, but he had not expected my return so soon -- and he smiled at me, and said the following words...
'I warned you, did I not? Play with the greater lights, and you will get burned.'
I did not know what this meant in that moment... I only knew I could not let him take her away from me without a fight. But decision and action are not the same thing, for the man had not come alone... and his dark-haired accomplice, concealed by her associates from my sight, decided to strike in that fateful moment. A green light played upon the rock, and I looked down, unable to believe what I was seeing -- not believing it could be true, that this woman had bowed so low as to shoot an innocent *child*. But it was true -- and the blood... there was so *much* blood.
And then? Then I knew pain. Even as my mistress screamed, I knew pain. And then, I knew darkness.
And it was a very long time before I found the light again.
* * *
"But you... you were cut down from behind!" the Other exclaimed, more off balance in this moment then Julia had ever seen. "You were ambushed by the man's accomplice! How could this action have possibly saved her?"
"When they attacked her, she dropped her fighting pike." Julia explained. "And so distracted were they by my appearance, that they moved faster then they might have... they made a mistake that later cost them both their lives. For when the Rimstalker returned to find his love stolen, he took up the burden of her pike, and walked with it into the darkness. He returned it to her hands so they might fight their last battle together. They made a desperate gamble -- but in the end, that gamble paid off. In the end, they both returned to us...
And I returned to them."
And for the first time since their conversation had began, the Other had nothing to say. Julia smiled... and then she jumped, as the sound of a set of hands being slowly clapped cut through that silence.
And she ever so slowly turned around, and sighed, when she saw who'd been doing the clapping. What a surprise -- she should have *known* he would turn up, sooner or later.
"Bravo." Galen allowed, his eyes bright and amused, Isabelle beside him. "Now what, exactly, will you be doing for an encore?"
* * *
White Star 750 - in hyperspace.
"Who are you?" the voice asked.
Sheridan looked up into the spotlight, and shielded his suddenly dazzled eyes, while trying to ignore the painful jolts that were coming from his jaw. He'd tried to surrender peacefully when the Alliance Rangers had boarded his ship, of course, but those Rangers had already decided that was not going to be an option. His next memory, the last until a short time ago, had been of a warrior pike making rather solid contact with said jaw. And now... now the inquisition was about to begin.
"You know who I am." he muttered.
"Who are you?" the voice insisted.
"John Sheridan, Sha'var Alyt of the Imperial First Order."
"The Conquerer of Vega? The man responsible for the razing of Ragesh?"
He nodded. "That would be me, yes."
"And what, exactly, is one of the Empire's most favoured warriors doing skulking around on the edge of our territory, without his fleets, without his warriors? It's almost as if you *wanted* to be captured, Sha'var Alyt!"
"Being captured by you," Sheridan replied, "Is, at the moment, better then the alternative."
"And what alternative would that be?"
"Being chased down by an Imperial Wolfpack and returned to Minbar in chains. Unless, of course, the Huntleader happens to be in a particularly vile mood... then I'd probably just be shot on sight."
"Interesting." the voice observed. "Sha'var Alyt Sheridan, have you actually fallen from grace somehow? The loss that your fleet endured at Zander Prime -- has it caused your mighty Council of Ascension to reevaluate their opinion of your *fine* warrior skills?"
"Now listen here!" a suddenly exasperated Sheridan shouted, "My own wife was ready to sell me out -- had actually send the Armsmaster of her house to our quarters to arrest me! At times like these, it suddenly became *real* easy to figure out that the system is ready to toss you aside!"
"Maybe your *system* has been teaching the wrong things all along."
Sheridan gritted his teeth, before nodding. "Maybe so. But after the fact, as I'm sure you're aware, everyone has twenty-twenty vision."
"You tried to win, one last time..."
"And failed. And now, as the old saying goes, 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
A pause came, then, and Sheridan smiled. Now he had them *right* where he wanted them. "Do you mean to tell us, Sha'var Alyt... that you wish to defect?"
He sighed. "Don't suppose a simple 'yes' would convince you, would it?"
"You are our prisoner." the voice warned. "We will shortly be taking you before the Alliance Council -- they will decide your fate."
"Well," Sheridan muttered, as an abrupt <click> told him the conversation was over, "We'e all got to start *somewhere*, I suppose."
* * *
"So," Stephen Franklin inquired, as he turned away from the mike, "What did you make of that?"
"Do you know," Tessa Halloran-Franklin icily replied, "What I would like to do to him after that little display, Stephen?"
"Wouldn't have something to do with throwing him out of the nearest available airlock, would it?"
"Damnit, you know how many of our colleagues have died, how many innocent lives have been lost because that monster in there decided that obeying the orders of his Council of Ascension was the right thing to do? Sheridan was the Imperial officer responsible for carpet-bombing Ragesh 3 in the second year of the Shadow War. The Imperials under his command killed thousands of Centauri in less then an hour during that attack, and who knows how many civilians since then!"
"I know." Franklin replied, as he took Tessa's hands in his own, and clasped them tightly. "But as much as I would like to agree with you, as much as I would like to grab that man in there and help you with the tossing-out-the-airlock part, I have to remind you that we simply do not have the authority to do that. I know it, Lennier knows it, and as much as I'm sure you want to disagree with me at the moment, you know it, too. In fact, as far I as know, there are only two people in the whole damn Alliance who have the authority to decide Sheridan's fate..."
"Delenn and the Admiral."
"Exactly. And you know what? Whatever penance they decide to make him serve will probably be a *lot* more painful then spacing."
"You'd better be right, Stephen."
"He is." another voice announced, and Tessa and Franklin turned away from their contemplation of the prisoner as Lennier entered the room. "Death is, in every respect, the easy way out for Sheridan. And yet -- and yet, I must be sure that he is telling the truth before we rendezvous with my Leaders. Very sure."
"And the nearest available telepaths..."
"Are the ones under HIS command, as well you know."
"That's what I thought you were going to say."
"It is -- necessary."
"Necessary to actually speak to the man?"
"Or necessary to ruin what was, up to this point, going to be an absolutely wonderful day?"
"Will answering both your questions prove hazardous to my health?"
"LENNIER!"
* * *
Nearby, other eyes, *predatory* eyes, were watching Lennier's squadron of White Stars with great interest. "Mistress! We beseech you, let us act freely! This ragged group of Alliance warships that Sheridan has surrendered himself to... surely you do not believe them strong enough to repel our advances?"
"You must have patience, my Huntsman! While our Hunt may have achieved its first objective easily because of Sheridan's foolishness in fleeing in one of *our* splinterships, the TRUE objective of this Hunt has not yet been attained."
The Huntsman frowned. "But what of our orders to capture Sheridan, and return him to Minbar?"
Ivanova leant forward in her chair, then, her eyes suddenly narrowed. "In time, this will happen... but not yet. For the moment, Sheridan acts as the bait, drawing in richer targets for our pursuit."
"Do you mean to say..."
"Exactly. The moment draws near, the moment I have waited my entire career for. When Sheridan conducted his futile attack against the EXCALIBUR, unaware that the Alliance was aware of his plan all along, he had the right target. He simply chose the wrong moment, and for the wrong reasons."
"And the moment of our attack?"
"Will come soon enough." Ivanova replied with a smile, as she watched the movements of the prey on her command-screen. "There will come a moment in the very near future when the prey will become vulnerable. That is the moment I will let loose your chains -- the moment when those who are our *true* targets reveals themselves.
Then, and only then, will the final pursuit begin!"
* * *
#Here#
Amaranth. The Labyrinth of Night.
Time had passed -- quite a bit of time, as a matter of fact. In the beginning, when his Na'lai and her tactical officer had gone 'between worlds' as the older of the two Soul Hunters had put it, Larieken had been told he would have to be patient. The sun of this place had risen from behind the icy mists, and Larieken had waited. It had crossed through its highpoint, and he and the others, now including *all* of the SHARD's medical personnel, had waited. Now, however, he was done with waiting. None of them, Klairika, Sheynell *or* Galen, had spoken in hours. Enough was enough. He strode forth -- the time had come to...
Larieken froze then, however, as a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder. "Minbari." the Praetor Questus rumbled, "Warned you we did, not to interfere. If connection is broken, your captain will be lost to you forever. Is this what you wish?"
"No, of course not! But the sun has nearly gone down again, they have been at this for *hours*! How much longer will this take?"
"Will take as long as it takes... Protector. Wise we are in the ways of the soul, but even we cannot say how long a search such as this one will take. Many variables, difficult problems to overcome..."
It was then, of course, that the Praetor Questus's companion, the Fhedayar, raised his hand away from their silver instrument (a silver instrument now surrounded by two occupied stretchers and a black-clad statue that was also a Technomage) and approached them. "He wishes to speak to you. Close they are drawing, after long hours of travel."
The Praetor Questus let out a long breath. "Well, this is. I will speak to him then, observe the entry of the Rangers into the matrix. Ensure you will that the *Minbari* does not interfere while talking to him, I am."
The Fhedayar bowed in the direction of his superior. "It shall be as you say."
Larieken shook his head, irritated beyond words, before he turned away from the sight of his friends and strode out into the gathering twilight. This whole situation still disturbed him -- and in the end, he knew, there would be a price to pay.
With Shagh Togh, there was *always* a price to pay.
* * *
More relaxed now that he did not have to deal with the suspicious Minbari who was the Ranger captain's protector, the Praetor Questus firmly grasped the Soul-searcher in his hand, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he saw what he had expected to see -- nearby, the shimmering, partially veiled essence of Galen -- in the distance, the shimmery soulform of the human telepath -- and farther yet, hovering over the bright matrix of the other reality, the more spidery form of the Brakiri... no doubt searching through that madness for the soul-form of her lost captain.
<Technomage. I am here. Tell me of your progress.>
<It has been annoyingly touch-and-go in here for the last several hours, I'm afraid. Not only did the telepath nearly fall into her alternate body, but in the last few minutes, I have felt the presence of my own alternate self in the continuum, very close to the Observer.>
The Praetor Questus shrugged. <This is to be expected. Told you, we did -- she is the Sha'naktoweire, Technomage. Around her, the web of destiny will be woven.>
<Eventually, perhaps... but not yet. For now, it is clear that we must delay the Brakiri and her comrade a while longer. The moment of Return has not yet arrived.>
<A warning I must give you, then, Technomage, a warning you must heed.>
<Say on.>
<In recent time, the Gate has become... unstable. Thought this would happen, we did.>
<The instablility -- it is not yet... serious, I trust?>
<Not yet. But this may change at any time. If the Gate destabilizes before your Moment of Change arrives...>
<Your warning is heeded.> Galen gravely replied. <But until the instability becomes serious, here we will remain.>
<When Gate is about to collapse, no more then forty of your seconds warning can I give!>
<That will be enough, friend, I assure you. More then enough.
Now go. I have work to do.>
* * *
#There#
"I got your message -- so it's true, then?"
Lochley nodded. "Yes. It's true. They're hunting him, even as we speak."
"I hate to say it, Lizzie, but I told you so. Twenty-five years ago when we went our seperate ways, I told you that marrying Sheridan would eventually lead you to grief."
"But I didn't want to listen to you."
"No, you didn't. Oh well, I suppose love blinds even the *best* of us on occasion."
"But not you?"
A shrug. "I've never had that problem in my relationships." The other woman sighed then, however, a sigh of contentment. "But in the end, I suppose we both got what we wanted. You're now the commander of the Imperial First Order, while I..."
"Now hold on! You're not saying what I *think* you're saying, are you?"
A nod. "Two days ago, the Majestari chose me as the Ministry's Illa'ri Tiveillum."
"Chief Prosecutor of the Empire?"
"Exactly. Wonderful, isn't it?"
Wonderful. "And when Sheridan is captured..."
"I will have the honour of conducting his cross-examination in front of the *entire* Council of Ascension. The Whole Empire will be watching me, think of it!"
"Congratulations." she whispered.
"Look, I don't mean to cut you off, but I'm all out of time on this end. When you arrive on Minbar, they'll be plenty of time to talk more... to talk about *old* times. Until then, keep safe."
"And you.
Zoeie."
* * *
"Back again, are they?"
"Yes. And in greater numbers then last time."
"And you're surprised about this, Mr. Eilerson? Their leader, he is quite a *focused* individual, isn't he? He knows what he wants, and he knows that we will help him... and to assure success, he has reached the point where he is nearly ready to pay *any* price. I treasure your suspicion and protectiveness, for it has saved my kind on a number of occasions, but for the moment, as my most trusted servant, I require you to go to them, and bring them here."
"And then?"
"Why, the latest move will have been played!"
"And how close, do you think, are we to checkmate?"